between the realities which he knew and the theatricalities which were presented on the stage. But whenever she looked, he was absorbed in the action of the play; she could almost feel him tremble when the hero was strapped to a log and thrown into the boiling mountain stream, and when the stage Jove was rescued on the fall of the curtain, she heard, with something like stupefaction, Mr. Reeder’s quivering sigh of relief.
‘But surely, Mr. Reeder, this bores you?’ she protested, when the lights in the auditorium went up.
‘This-you mean the play-bore me? Good gracious, no! I think it is very fine, remarkably fine.’
‘But it isn’t life, surely? The story is so wildly improbable, and the incidents-oh, yes, I’m enjoying it all; please don’t look so worried! Only I thought that you, who knew so much about criminology-is that the word?- would be rather amused.’
Mr. Reeder was looking very anxiously at her.
‘I’m afraid it is not the kind of play-’
‘Oh, but it is-I love melodrama. But doesn’t it strike you as being-far-fetched? For instance, that man being chained to a log, and the mother agreeing to her son’s death?’
Mr. Reeder rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
‘The Bermondsey gang chained Harry Salter to a plank, turned it over and let him down, just opposite Billingsgate Market. I was at the execution of Tod Rowe, and he admitted it on the scaffold. And it was “Lee” Pearson’s mother who poisoned him at Teddington to get his insurance money so that she could marry again. I was at the trial and she took her sentence laughing-now what else was there in that act? Oh, yes, I remember: the proprietor of the sawmill tried to get the young lady to marry him by threatening to send her father to prison. That has been done hundreds of times-only in a worse way. There is really nothing very extravagant about a melodrama except the prices of the seats, and I usually get my tickets free!’
She listened, at first dumbfounded and then with a gurgle of amusement.
‘How queer-and yet-well, frankly, I have only met melodrama once in life, and even now I cannot believe it. What happens in the next act?’
Mr. Reeder consulted his programme.
‘I rather believe that the young woman in the white dress is captured and removed to the harem of an Eastern potentate,’ he said precisely, and this time the girl laughed aloud.
‘Have you a parallel for that?’ she asked triumphantly, and Mr. Reeder was compelled to admit that he knew no exact parallel, but —
‘It is rather a remarkable coincidence,’ he said, ‘a very remarkable coincidence!’
She looked at her programme, wondering if she had overlooked anything so very remarkable.
‘There is at this moment, watching me from the front row of the dress circle-I beg you not to turn your head-one who, if he is not a potentate, is undoubtedly Eastern; there are, in fact, two dark-complexioned gentlemen, but only one may be described as important.’
‘But why are they watching you?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Possibly,’ said Mr. Reeder solemnly, ‘because I look so remarkable in evening dress.’
One of the dark-complexioned gentlemen turned to his companion at this moment.
‘It is the woman he travels with every day; she lives in the same street, and is doubtless more to him than anybody in the world, Ram. See how she laughs in his face and how the old so-and-so looks at her! When men come to his great age they grow silly about women. This thing can be done tonight. I would sooner die than go back to Bombay without accomplishing my design upon this such-and-such and so-forth.’
Ram, his chauffeur, confederate and fellow jailbird, who was cast in a less heroic mould, and had, moreover, no personal vendetta, suggested in haste that the matter should be thought over.
‘I have cogitated every hypothesis to its logical conclusions,’ said Ras Lal in English.
‘But, master,’ said his companion urgently, ‘would it not be wise to leave this country and make a fortune with the new money which the fat little man can sell to us?’
‘Vengeance is mine,’ said Ras Lal in English.
He sat through the next act which, as Mr. Reeder had truly said, depicted the luring of an innocent girl into the hateful clutches of a Turkish pasha and, watching the development of the plot, his own scheme underwent revision. He did not wait to see what happened in the third and fourth acts-there were certain preparations to be made.
‘I still think that, whilst the story is awfully thrilling, it is awfully impossible,’ said Margaret, as they moved slowly through the crowded vestibule. ‘In real life-in civilised countries, I mean-masked men do not suddenly appear from nowhere with pistols and say “Hands up!”-not really, do they, Mr. Reeder?’ she coaxed.
Mr. Reeder murmured a reluctant agreement.
‘But I have enjoyed it tremendously!’ she said with enthusiasm, and looking down into the pink face Mr. Reeder felt a curious sensation which was not entirely pleasure and not wholly pain.
‘I am very glad,’ he said.
Both the dress-circle and the stalls disgorged into the foyer, and he was looking round for a face he had seen when he arrived. But neither Ras Lal nor his companion in misfortune was visible. Rain was falling dismally, and it was some time before he found a cab.
‘Luxury upon luxury,’ smiled Margaret, when he took his place by her side. ‘You may smoke if you wish.’
Mr. Reeder took a paper packet of cigarettes from his waistcoat pocket, selected a limp cylinder, and lit it.
‘No plays are quite like life, my dear young lady,’ he said, as he carefully pushed the match through the space between the top of the window and the frame. ‘Melodramas appeal most to me because of their idealism.’
She turned and stared at him.
‘Idealism?’ she repeated incredulously.
He nodded.
‘Have you ever noticed that there is nothing sordid about a melodrama? I once saw a classical drama-”OEdipus”-and it made me feel sick. In melodrama even the villains are heroic and the inevitable and unvarying moral is “Truth crushed to earth will rise again”-isn’t that idealism? And they are wholesome. There are no sex problems; unpleasant things are never shown in an attractive light-you come away uplifted.’
‘If you are young enough,’ she smiled.
‘One should always be young enough to rejoice in the triumph of virtue,’ said Mr. Reeder soberly.
They crossed Westminster Bridge and bore left to the New Kent Road. Through the rain-blurred windows J.G. picked up the familiar landmarks and offered a running commentary upon them in the manner of a guide. Margaret had not realised before that history was made in South London.
‘There used to be a gibbet here-this ugly-looking goods station was the London terminus of the first railways-Queen Alexandra drove from there when she came to be married-the thoroughfare on the right after we pass the Canal bridge is curiously named Bird-in-Bush Road-’
A big car had drawn level with the cab, and the driver was shouting something to the cabman. Even the suspicious Mr. Reeder suspected no more than an exchange of offensiveness, till the cab suddenly turned into the road he had been speaking about. The car had fallen behind, but now drew abreast.
‘Probably the main road is up,’ said J.G., and at that moment the cab slowed and stopped.
He was reaching out for the handle when the door was pulled open violently, and in the uncertain light Mr. Reeder saw a broad-shouldered man standing in the road.
‘Alight quickly!’
In